This is Why Restaurants are Going to Hell

Day 44/365: Here’s why I think long-menus restaurants are going extinct in about 5 years from now

I rarely go to classic restaurants these days. By that I mean the ones that we all know, with huge, hard to read menus, expensive beverages and ridiculous waiting times. I love food, don’t get me wrong, like a good burger, but there are a few places in my area where I can go and have a properly grilled patty, a soft bun and fresh ingredients as toppings.

As for pizza, my favourite food of all time, there’s this little place on a back alley where they do wood fired oven pizzas and only have takeaway, which is fine in most cases, although sometimes I’d love to just sit down and eat a pie with a friend before it gets too cold.

Bipolar restaurants

The reason why I don’t believe, and therefore don’t go to classic, long-menus restaurants as much as I used to is because they are sort of bipolar. When people are suffering from bipolar disorders, they usually have a week of good energy, high levels of motivation and positivity, followed by 3 to 4 weeks of depression, low self-esteem and all the other nasty stuff.

With restaurants trying to do everything on their extensive menus right every single time, which is impossible no matter how good the chef might be, there’s always going to be fluctuations in the quality of the food that they serve.

But you know what never fluctuates, despite the quality of the food? The prices, which are bigger and bigger everytime you return to a certain spot.

I think normal, classic restaurants without a purpose will go extinct in about 4 to 5 years time. If restauranteurs can’t instruct their staff into preparing fewer dishes, as in two or three foods that are linked to one another (fried chicken strips and fries, crispy chicken burger with wedges and chicken and waffles as a short, easy to prepare and delicious menu) they’ll keep losing their clients and go bankrupt.

The only way for restaurants to survive is for them to come up with a simple, attractive menu of good dishes that can be done exactly the same way every single time, that are loved by returning patrons and presented beautifully, are moderately priced and accompanied by good drinks that don’t require you to sell out your kidneys on the black market in order to pay the bill.

I got the idea for this article after dining at “the best restaurant” in my hometown the other night. The food was tasteless, the service was slow (almost an hour wait, no patrons around, just obnoxious as an experience) and the bill was just ridiculous.

I paid $4 for a lemonade when the normal price for this drink is about $2 at a good place in the middle of the city. For the total bill, I can invite 3–4 friends over and have a proper dinner with drinks, and still have money to call an UBER for them at the end of the night. We don’t get UBER here, but it’s cooler than saying a taxi. I try to be cool, sometimes I fail, I’m sorry.

Dear restauranteurs, your long menus with 40 different dishes are poorly executed, you have no vision for food and you try and do every single dish on Earth at once, which doesn’t work. And, although you sometimes make it work, your negative bipolar weeks are slowly, but surely killing your business.

Simple menus ideas for your restaurant:

steak and potatoes;

burgers and ribs;

tapas;

mexican food (tacos and quesadillas);

deep fried seafood;

simple pizzas with a twist;

breakfast and brunch spot.

Thank you for your time!

If you want an article like the one above for your blog or website, or any type of content for that matter, you can reach me on my content creator page HERE and we can come up with the best writing piece for you and your business!

My name is Gabriel Iosa, I’m a 25 years old travel enthusiast, food lover, Psychology student, Full-time Freelancer, writer and Instagram fanatic. You can follow me @gabrieliosa, and if you liked this post, give it exactly 45 claps!

I’m on a mission to write 365 articles in 2018. This is definitely the biggest writing challenge of my life so far. If you’d like to be part of the journey, please follow me here on Medium.com for the daily posts!